Closet Control

I must write. Right now. 

I'm trying to keep my mind off the crying coming from down the hall.  It's my son's first attempt at naptime without a paci.  It will be just fine.  We've been down this road three times before and emerged stronger, more resilient people sans pacis.

Until then, I thought I'd share a little of what I've done the last two days with my homemaking.

You know how some people keep mounds of clothes that are too little for them hoping they will fit into them again one day when they lose weight?  Their closets and drawers become full of items they can no longer wear and may possibly never wear again, because if the weight does come off, the fashion will probably have changed by then.

I have had the opposite problem.  My closet and drawers have been full of clothes I no longer wear because they're too big.  I know, I know, that's a good problem to have.  I am incredibly thankful for the good genes given to me that have enabled me to lose more weight than I've gained with each pregnancy (except one time, I fell four pounds short), well those genes and breastfeeding.  The problem is that I don't know if God's done growing our family, so I've been holding on to my post-partum clothes, those that I had to buy to keep my sanity during those moments of not believing I can possibly make it another day wearing maternity clothes when I'm not even pregnant anymore!

After my last baby, I decided to get rid of most of my maternity clothes.  I gave them to my cousin, thinking how silly it was to hold onto them any longer after four babies.  I gave away baby girl clothes once I found out I was expecting a boy, along with anything else my tiny two-year-old (then still wearing 12 month clothes) had outgrown.  Even with that clearing out and the clothes my youngest daughter has since outgrown, I'm still currently holding boxes of clothes for girls 18 months to size 6, for every season of the year.  That's a lot of clothes!

But when it came time to give away my newborn boy clothes, I couldn't do it.  One boy had worn these clothes for just a few weeks.  Then, it was the 3-6 month clothes I packed up, and subsequently, kept in the closet, just in case.  And so it has gone with those post-partum clothes, except I allowed them to stay in my closet, causing one terrible mess.

The last two days, I have taken every article of clothing from my closet and from my drawers.  I have thrown away the clothes that have spit-up stains or that aren't in fashion any longer.  I have made a pile of clothes to donate that I used to wear to teach back in the day.  I hung up the clothes I actually wear.  I put the shoes that belong to this season neatly on a shoe rack.  The out of season shoes now go in one of those plastic drawer "thingies" I added to my closet.  I also use one drawer for my pajamas, after pulling out my post-partum, great for nursing in the middle of the night, gowns.  The third drawer is for all of my swimsuits.  Yes, all of them.  I think I had seven swimsuits.  We enjoy the water a lot at our house.  I summoned up enough courage to throw away some of my college t-shirts that had faded.  I just couldn't throw away my NGC Survivor Homecoming 2000 t-shirt.  Those memories were too much fun, fellow NGC or NGU grads!  I threw away several nursing bras, but kept a few to put with the post-partum clothes.

Those post-partum clothes are in a stack, awaiting my trip to the DG to buy a plastic box for them, which will be their new home in the attic, just in case I do need them again some day.

Yes, I could've given myself a "keeping it real" gold star sticker by taking before and after pictures, but alas, I failed to do so.  And, I really don't know if I'm brave enough for that yet!